[burt]

Okay, I'll give it a shot......

All my childhood, I was the smallest child or one of them in my class. Every sport I tried out for, I was the first one cut. Kind of hard to improve at any sport when you're the first one cut. So...I buried myself in literature to escape. I quickly developed quite a vocabulary, and learned how NOT to use it. Small kids with large vocabularies get picked on! Sam, last name withheld, beat me up 4 days in a row...5th day I ran home! My dad wanted a jock and his nick name for me was "panty waist".

My Freshman year, 9th grade, actually, because middle school was 7 through 9th grade, I discovered wrestling. At 98 pounds, there was no one! So I started wrestling. I think I lost every match but one, but I wouldn't stop trying. My father didn't show up for a single match. That year, a wrestler at 145 picked on me by viciously shoving me in the showers, causing me to fall and get stone bruises on both knees...they really hurt!

Sophomore year I wrestled 112 and won about 50% of my JV matches. Sam, last name withheld, was a big man on campus and wrestled Varsity at 132.

Then came my Junior year....a true eye opener! I had the pleasure of wrestling JV under a true stud at 132 pounds. He eventually took 3rd in State that year. BUT I had learned enough that we had to "wrestle off" for Varsity almost every other week. I kept getting better. At Varsity/JV tourneys, some schools would drop their Varsity wrestler to JV so he could get a Gold medal, instead of simply getting beat by Curt. Coach would let me know so I would get up for the match. It was a pleasure beating those Varsity wrestlers and watching my coach grin! Sam, last name withheld didn't wrestle that year.

Senior year! Wrestling was kind of our schools thing. We absolutely sucked at football and basketball. I had about 8 guys in my weight class of 145 pounds, 3 of us seniors. After about 2 weeks, the other seniors got the hell out of my weight class. One went up a weight class, the other went down a weight class. They realized who was Varsity at 145...

First big match at one of our rivals, I was in the locker room waiting to weigh in. One of their wrestlers looked at me and asked, "What weight?"

"145" I answered.

"Oh, dude, I'm sorry....that's Richie...." he said, and he looked truly sorry for me.

Richie came in, wearing his letter jacket. He seemed to lean towards his letter side due to the numerous medals he was wearing. He pinned me quickly.

Next time we wrestled, I was slightly ahead, made a mistake and he pinned me again. I kept at learning.

In practices, I would do my turn wrestling "Corners". "Corners" was a drill where the Varsity guy would wrestle for 20 seconds with a wrestler from his or the next weight class above or below. Then do it again with a fresh wrestler. Then another. Then another..etc. Usually 6 to 8 rounds then the other varsity guy had the same routine. The kid who shoved me in the showers in the 9th grade wrestled at 165. I would then go up to 165 and abuse the "shower pusher" sometimes taking several turns. It always ended with him begging the Coach to make me go back down to my weight class!

Sam, last name withheld heard that I was Varsity and there were no Senior Challengers. He decided to go out for wrestling. His first day, I asked Coach to let me have him as a "Partner" since we were the same weight.
Now, usually in practice, wrestlers go at about 75% to 80%. I went about 103% all practice. I hurt him so bad, that he quit and had no more practices...

Then came my schools Take Down Tournament. Richie would be there.... This time I made no mistakes. He was 24-0. When the match was over, we were both totally exhausted, and I was his first loss. I remember laying on the mat..looking up at the packed stands and seeing my Dad jumping up and down in his plaid sport coat. It was ugly. But he no longer had a "panty waste". Richie was so angry that he said he was gonna quit wrestling. His mom and girl friend had t-shirts with his face on them...and they were crying all over the t-shirts. Of course he didn't quit.

Now, I will say, the next week, at HIS schools tournament, it came down to him and me again. And he barely beat me. And, of course, that week we got our picture on the front page of the sports section of the KC Star. One of his team mates told me that he worked on countering MY best moves all week.

I had that one moment....and many years of retribution.

Epilogue: One of the coolest things ever to happen to me was the next summer. I was waiting to weigh in at a freestyle wrestling tourney, when I heard this whispered....."That's {insert my name here}!!!"